Members of four new chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America—Iowa City, Central Iowa, Dubuque and Heart of Iowa—take socialism on parade on the opening day of the Iowa State Fair, August 9. (Rose Fiala/DSA)

Socialism, Coming to a State Fair Near You

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“I think people around me distrust centralized power and the elites. They might not call that the ‘ruling class,’ but that’s what it is.”

DES MOINES, IOWA—What do fried enchilada funnel cakes and democratic socialism have in common? Both made their debut this year at the Iowa State Fair, an annual tradition deeply embedded in American culture and politics. In the August 9 opening parade, amid floats advertising Iowa Catholic Radio and corn mazes, 30 Iowa socialists chanted, “How does single-payer pass? Unify the working class!”

Every four years, presidential hopefuls flock to the Iowa fairgrounds to test their messaging and prove their common touch. Things are quieter in off-years, so local Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members decided to try an experiment. Why not use the event to test Iowans’ appetite for socialism?

“We had no idea how people would react,” says Christine Darr, secretary of Iowa’s newly formed Dubuque DSA chapter. In fact, the socialists got a warm welcome, with many in the crowd cheering their calls for universal healthcare.

Since its launch in January, the Dubuque chapter has grown to about 40 members. It’s one of four Iowa chapters that have sprung up since Donald Trump’s victory. DSA even has a member running for a seat on Des Moines’ non-partisan city council: Abshir Omar, 26, a Somali refugee.

He wouldn’t be the state’s first socialist to hold office. Prior to 1960, the Iowa branch of Eugene V. Debs’ Socialist Party successfully elected candidates in at least eight cities. That included the city of Davenport, where voters pulled off an astonishing political revolution in the midst of the first Red Scare: In 1920, the mayor and five of eight city council members were open socialists. A socialist candidate for governor, George Peck, ran that year calling for publicly owned utilities and state insurance for industrial accidents, but the influence of Iowa socialists soon fizzled amidst infighting and a fresh wave of red-baiting.

It’s these oft-forgotten histories that many are hoping to channel as they rebuild socialist organizations in the Midwest. “Lots of people don’t know that Iowa has a populist history, even a socialist history,” says Alex Kruse, 20, a new DSA member who hails from a union household in Dubuque and says he was “first drawn to Marxism in middle school.”

DSA’s membership numbers in the Midwest still lag behind the coasts, but the region has seen nine new DSA chapters form this year and 2,800 new members sign up online since the 2016 election.

That should debunk the notion that socialism can’t play in Peoria, says Erika Paschold, 31, a member of a DSA chapter in Lincoln, Neb., established in April. “I’m really passionate about trying to connect Nebraska values to socialist values,” says Paschold, who grew up on a farm outside Lincoln. “I think people around me distrust centralized power and the elites. They might not call that the ‘ruling class,’ but that’s what it is.” The Lincoln chapter plans to organize around affordable housing issues.

In April, DSA member Dylan Parker won his bid for city council in Rock Island, Ill., just across the river from Davenport. Parker, a 28-year-old diesel mechanic who was born in Davenport and is well aware of its socialist history, says he “never shoved the s-word down peoples’ throats” while knocking on doors. But he didn’t hide his politics, either, and campaigned on a proposal for publicly owned broadband internet—a plan reminiscent of the “sewer socialism” made famous in Milwaukee in the early 20th century. Municipally minded socialists sought to clean up the pollution caused by the Industrial Revolution and establish city control over water and power systems.

Parker says he doesn’t mind this callback to the politics of waste disposal: “It’s not the most glamorous name, but it’s the substance that matters,” he says. “The goal is to replace private ownership of services with democratic ownership.”

Rebecca Burns is an award-winning investigative reporter whose work has appeared in The Baffler, the Chicago Reader, The Intercept and other outlets. She is a contributing editor at In These Times. Follow her on Twitter @rejburns.

Socialists (Social Democrats) have not "controlled" all of Germany since Willy Brandt. If you confuse Democratic with national socialism, that's tantamount to confusing Steve Bannon with Bernie Sanders.

Posted by Charles Curry on 2017-10-17 13:15:14

RR, you need to learn the first thing about democratic socialism before you spout off about it. It would help to read In These Times regularly and to net-search Frank Zeidler and Victor Berger.

Posted by Charles Curry on 2017-10-17 13:09:35

You realize you are assigning guilt to large populations based on the actions of individuals, yes?

As well to say that because some Christians murdered people in the name of their religion that Christianity itself is the problem. Or that because Americans murdered women and children in Vietnam, that America, as a concept, is evil.

Where do you draw the line? How do you know where to draw it?

"Socialism" has been used as a dog whistle in this country for a very long time, while quietly ignoring the fact "socialism" is at the root of society. Pooling resources to provide for the welfare of all. Being roads and sewers, or police and soldiers, we are collectively choosing to share these burdens because we all benefit from them. But for a very long time, there have been those in this country who have tried to gloss of these facts and paint "socialism" as something alien and foreign which is imposed by force by some sort of tyrannical dictator.

What the DSA stands for is the recognition that we have common interests and mutual obligations to one another as a society. The principle philosophy of the DSA is that collective needs should be identified and met, democratically, by collective action.

This does not mean that anyone is going to confiscate your property or march you off to a work camp. It means that you are going to be asked to contribute to maintaining the roads, the schools, the emergency services and the health care that you and your family all need and draw benefit from. Since it is a hot button right now, let's look at health care.

Set aside the questions about fairness or compassion for a minute and approach it mechanically. Without adequate health care, more become sick. The sickness spreads throughout the community. Aside from being a direct threat to you and your family, it weakens the workforce and disrupts economic activities. It drives up the price of medicines and lowers the general quality of life of everyone in the neighborhood, town, county or state. This was the approach taken when public sewers were first put into use starting in the 19th Century. It was about sanitation and public health.

But, if we simply cry "socialism" and let everyone fend for themselves, then what you have is a return of the seasonal epidemics which killed and crippled ten and hundreds of thousands of people.

Let go of the specter conjured up by red baiting McCarthyism. We're not Stalinists, or Leninists or even Trotskyites. We are your neighbors and fellow citizens trying to solve foundational issues that cut across the entire population. We are not asking you to put all your faith and resources in our hands and blindly accept that we know what is best. We are asking to you come to the table and be a part of the process. That's the _democratic_ part. It means you have your say, and your chance to argue your point of view and concerns, and that you have a right to share in the benefits of whatever solutions are reached.

Maybe that's scary. In an age when it seems more and more like we are isolated from each other and like our voices are ignored by those holding all of the financial and political power...it's easy and entirely understandable that you, or I, or anyone would be afraid. Especially when many of us have been conditioned for the last forty, fifty, sixty or more years to view the word "socialism" with terror and dread in the form of the Soviet Union. I grew up during the Cold War. I remember.

But fear, as FDR said, is our greatest enemy. And this wasn't a unique notion to him. TR said much the same, telling us that to be a truly free people, we have to overcome our fears. The Bull Moose even offered a prescription, saying that first step is to act as though we are not afraid, and then, gradually, we will not be. This is my challenge to you.

Set aside your fear for a moment, and ask me what you want about the agenda and priorities that I have. Ask me what it is that _I_ am afraid of. By asking for this knowledge, you open the door to understanding, and in so doing make compromise and cooperation possible.

Southern Civil War historian Shelby Foote once said of the cause of the Civil War, "It was because we failed to do the thing we really have a genius for, which is compromise. Americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising. Our true genius is for compromise. Our whole government's founded on it. And, it failed."

I ask you to bridge this gap with me, personally, as an individual. I'm listening.

Posted by Bharda Sullivan on 2017-10-06 15:11:34

Acknowledging that AIPAC has too much influence on our elected officials is not the same as being a paranoiac anti-Semite. The Israelis have been guilty of human rights violations for decades, and yet that government all-but-never faces pressure from Washington. Nobody here is calling for the abandonment of a Nation State we had a hand in creating...but we're tired of the way Washington gives Tel Aviv a pass on basic human rights violations.

Posted by Bharda Sullivan on 2017-10-06 14:26:22

Please...lets stop the BS. Listening to some of you and your republican and capitalist talking points and comparing Democratic Socialism to Hitler and Stalin is laughable when you have a Nazi in the White House. So Stop, please. Democratic Socialism is a time tested approach in governance, and can be observed first hand all over the world. We (USA) are the hold-outs in an advancing world. We are considered to be (by the majority of nations) the greatest risk to world peace, and as to science, climate change, education, ...ad nauseum- Our nation consistently ranks WELL below our peers. Get over the 1950s mentality, join the rest of us as we, along with the rest of the worlds nations begin to rebuild the post-war world into a modern and just one.

Posted by Marcus Mann on 2017-09-28 19:16:01

"I'm more and more happy I joined the DSA every day"

And the DSA voting at its convention to fight what they perceive to be the Jewish menace.

Saying this Nazi-like organization is great for mucking out houses is like calling the KKK wonderful for picking up trash on some highways.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-26 05:29:44

"Parker, a 28-year-old diesel mechanic who was born in Davenport and is well aware of its socialist history, says he “never shoved the s-word down peoples’ throats” while knocking on doors"

Knocking in doors is something socialists have a scary history of doing:

"After Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, he seized every ... The SS was a particularly important tool of Nazi terror. ... took power, SA and Gestapo agents went from door to door looking for Hitler's enemies" - Holocaust Museum, describing what happened during the time socialists controlled all of Germany.

"Describing the arrest of Osip Mandelstam in May 1934, his wife Nadezhda wrote: "In the evening the translator David Brodski turned up and then just would not leave. There wasn't a bit to eat in the house and M. went around to the neighbors to try and get something for Akhmatova's supper...At about one o'clock in the morning , there was a sharp unbearably explicit knock on the door. 'They've come for Osip,' I said and went to open the door." - from "Description of a Stalin-era Arrest", on a web site about the history of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-18 10:30:01

Socialism: Hitler and Stalin.

Democratic Socialism: Elected Hitler and Elected Stalin.

If they want to bring socialism to a state fair, they need to turn a tent into a death camp or gulag.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-18 10:22:13

I'm more and more happy I joined the DSA every day. The Juggalos outnumbering the rightists, DSA helping muck out peoples houses in Houston, DSA at fairs, keep them roses coming!